Saturday, 7 November 2015

Can exercise help stress? guest post by David McKinley PT

Hey my lovelies, today I have another post from my fab friend David a personal trainer who has been kind enough to write a couple of posts for you all. Today is all about stress and how doing some exercise can help aleviate it. Obviously before entering into any exercise you should seek professional and medical advice.

STRESS AND EXERCISE

So in the last blog we looked at some of the factors that can influence how stressed you are and the effect that can have on your body.
Can we eliminate stress completely, in short no. If we could I would be looking for a way to monetise it and live on an island.

While not being able to get rid of it we can however try and reduce it or at least it’s affect on our bodies. A lot of people these days will revert to things like a pill or alcohol as a way of reducing stress, these are however quite destructive them selves and come with some effects.
I always recommend Exercise as a great way of affecting stress so let’s look at some of the reasons why.

Exercise in any form has a huge impact for good on your mind and body. We know this right? I’m not telling you anything new. The problem from what everyone is telling me is that they are so stressed and so short of time that you don’t have the ability to fit this great tool in to your schedule. (We will address this in the third instalment)
So first of all why is Exercise so good for you?
Endorphins:
Exercise pumps up your brain to release some of the ‘feel good’ hormones called Endorphins, we have all heard of these, Chocolate also releases these but unlike chocolate exercise doesn’t add extra calories in to your diet. I’m not saying don’t eat chocolate by the way. 😀
Meditation:
Think of it as meditation in motion. You will find that after a run, jog or a few laps of a swimming pool that whatever stress of the day you had when you went in doesn’t seem as stressful anymore and have started to drift away a bit. Partly this is because for that short time you are concentrating on just the movement you’re are doing or your breathing. For me that’s why I personally like lifting weights, I focus on form and breathing during it and whatever I was thinking about before goes right out of my head.

This idea of focusing on something repetitive is a big part of meditation. I won’t talk about that any further now because I could do a whole other post on that!
Confidence and Mindset:
Exercise can increase your mood on a day to day basis. Think of the scenario, you are unhappy with your body which you are in 24 hours a day, this can massively effect your mood. So lets imagine that instead of focusing on the scales you start running and you start small by trying to walk a mile everyday and then increase it to the point where you are able to do your first 5K. You body will have changed so much in that time you will feel much more confident about it and with hitting new records over time for how long or fast you can run you will also gain confidence in your own ability. This all has a carry over in to your daily mood and how you approach something, if you have gone from struggling to walk a mile to running a 5K you can bet when you are presented with a challenge somewhere else in your life you will feel better about overcoming it.

I know what you might be thinking - “Alright, we get it, I need to exercise but I’m really busy”

Don’t worry I’ve got your back. In the next post I will talk about my 10 ways to get a little more exercise in your day.

If you want to ask me any questions about Health, nutrition, or fitness in general you can drop me an email - David@sustainablefitnescoach.com
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Hi guys! I am a 30 something girl in this crazy world of blogging! I love all things beauty, plus size fashion, lifestyle and lots of things in between. This is my little piece of the internet, where I can be me, and I am loving my journey so far, come say hello!! I am PR friendly and welcome the opportunity to do reviews or attend events xx